Insanity In The Things They Carried

Superior Essays
A soldier who goes into war will never come out being the same man. The psychological stress of war makes every soldier lose their mind, in both clinical and/or abstract terms. The clinical definition of insanity is “a severely disordered state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder” (Merriam-Webster). The abstract definition is “to deal with heightened stress in un-methodistic ways”. In The Things They Carried, by writer and Vietnam war veteran, Tim O’Brien, every character deals with being in the brutal circumstances of the Vietnam war by either using drugs, creating a delusion, or by simply giving up all forms of hope. So the question is, “How would you define insanity for a soldier who is at war?”. The definition of insanity …show more content…
It also shows the psychological effects that the war had on each character. Tim O’Brien is the writer of this book but he is also the protagonist of this novel. O’Brien describes a man he killed in My Khe with a deep, detailed description. He does this due to a natural human instinct to make connections to the stranger he had killed. Soldiers are expected to just aim and shoot, but humans are not machines, they have emotions and want to make emotional connections to their surroundings (Ford). He makes up a life story for the man and beats himself up over the fact that this man would have been a “gentle soul” (O’Brien 37). Ted Lavender is a man who dies in the beginning of the novel and whose death adds to the psychological stress of his fellow soldiers. His character is described as a heavy marijuana user (O’Brien 11). He uses this drug so that he can move through the functions of war in a numb, dream like state. Ted shows signs of abstract insanity in the concept that he always carries tranquilizers with him. He does this so that if he is shot, he won 't be in pain. “Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Ke in mid-April” (O’Brien 21). The narrator excuses Ted Lavender for his drug use because the other soldiers understand the need to detach oneself from …show more content…
They are all just young men trying to survive a bloody, brutal war on soil that is not there own. In The Things They Carried, the men used their abstract forms of insanity to hide themselves from reality because the reality of their lives is terrifying and foreign. The only cure for soldiers insanity is to go home and try to move on from all the struggles a soldier goes through. Being equipped with all of this information, one question must be asked again, “How would you define insanity for a soldier who is at war?”. Abstractly or

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Human Rather Than a Character The first thing that comes to mind while thinking about a soldier is a man wearing clean uniform with glittering gold badges. This man is courageous, fearless; he can run through mud while it’s raining, go into dark tunnels without having any fear. From this hypothetical soldier’s face, it can be understood that he is proud of serving his country and protecting the weak. This man who would do anything to save his compatriots, fights dauntlessly in the war zone, when all he can think about is his beloved wife and kids.…

    • 1355 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    O Brien Themes

    • 1005 Words
    • 5 Pages

    His work is different from others, in a way that each chapter can be its own short story. It causes the audience to see various perspectives on war and helps O’Brien dictate between “story-truth” and “happening-truth”. Each character in some way, gets a chapter dedicated to them and their background life. O’Brien shows in-depth detail on how war alters a person’s life, and how soldiers are human beings too. Many soldiers on the platoon leave the war with PTSD due to their emotional weakness, as many people can not bare to live through what a soldier must…

    • 1005 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien's. This novel connected to any short stories, but one of the best short story starts with Ted Lavender, and it is mostly important because, he is the first character to die, so his death characteristically make a change in the story. In mid-April, Alpha Company is searching out and destroying Vietcong tunnel. While one of the other men was down in a tunnel and everyone was waiting to see if he would come back up, Ted Lavender popped some tranquilizers and went off to pee.…

    • 498 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    War changes people. The Vietnam war changed many soldiers, families, and countries who were affected. This war was different from the other wars we had fought in the past. It was long and, it lasted years longer than they had expected. The war became increasingly unpopular at home in the United States.…

    • 1371 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many of the Vietnam War veterans dealt with depression due to the conflicting experiences of war and the toll death had on the soldiers internally. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Vietnam war veterans that experiences combat was also common because they were taught to internalize their emotions. “The Things They Carried” shows people the burden of loss our soldiers deal with when they come home. The American Journal of Psychiatry conducted a study on sixty-one Vietnam War veterans when they arrived home from war. The results were…

    • 973 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Not only is the trauma of being a solider during war a heavy burden, but also the life Cross is missing while at war takes a toll on him psychologically. In the beginning of the story, we learn that more than anything Jimmy wants to be loved by Martha just as much as he loves her. Though he knows she does not love him the same, she becomes the main focus of his world, leading to his constant distraction which is a heavy weight he bears upon his shoulders. This weight leads to him feeling responsible for one of his men dying and can be understood when the narrator states, “He had loved Martha more than his men, and as consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war”. The language used by O’Brien not only underscores the pain felt by Cross for believing he could have both a life in America and life at war, but also carefully reveals his epiphany of letting go of his life in America to become a true war…

    • 986 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Composition II Essay Outline “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, is short story is about the soldiers during The Vietnam war and their struggles to maintain their lives. The author talks about how that their mental burdens they carry outweigh the physical burdens that those in war must carry. (O’Brien 1-12). In the story the narrator states, "They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight" (O’Brien 10).…

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one” (Agatha Christie). To begin, this quote exemplifies how soldiers are left with the feeling that war solves nothing since the events haunt them through their disabilities. Soldiers are left with a permanent impression on their lives through the injuries they experience from war, like the loss of a limb or nightmares of such tragic events that would scare even the most intrepid(1) soldier. By the same token, this quote illustrates soldiers who are faced with the distress and longing desires to flee from the trauma which they have encountered during their service. The death of those they have fought with, cried with, and faced…

    • 230 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Soldiers of the Vietnam War viewed it as a complicated and unwanted conflict, as illustrated in Tim O’Brien’s historical novel The Things They Carried. The soldiers in the book faced fear, pain, and death for a war they didn’t believe in; they killed and died because society taught them to place strength above all else. The Vietnam War introduced a pressure to aspire for masculinity and twisted love into obsession which shaped the beliefs, ideas, actions, and feelings of the soldiers in an irreversibly harmful way. O’Brien uses masculinity as a driving force for the actions of all the soldiers. The desire for masculinity and fear of ridicule pushed many young men into the war, and resulted in a generation of men that "died and killed because…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Tim O’Brien vividly describes the soldiers’ slow and realistic descent into loneliness and worthlessness that…

    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the novel The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, imagination is explored as a complex concept. It is talked about immensely particularly with the character Jorgensen. O'Brien remembers how the younger version of himself and Azar torment Jorgensen by making sounds that they know will scare him and awaken his imagination. Imagination becomes a killer to Jorgensen both physically and emotionally; it causes him to physically put his body through certain movements that are abnormal, and it ignites a fear within him that makes him lose hope for survival and makes him think that he is about to die.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ted Lavender was described as young and scared. He would often pop tranquilizers in an attempt to distract himself from the war. Ted was the first to die in the story, his like Curt Lemon’s represents the expendability of human life in a pointless war. The character that seemed most distraught over Lavender’s death was Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. When Lieutenant Cross is first introduced into the story he seems like he's a creep.…

    • 741 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It was only after their short victory that included Lee Strunk 's survival when Cross let himself back into reality, and at the same time, the untimely murder of Ted Lavender occurred. Cross left in an undignified stupor; furthermore, it made him think about how his actions affected his men. Chen rationalizes his behavior by stating, “The subsequent death of Ted Lavender jolts him into awareness, forcing the realization that the romantic fantasies produced by an exilic consciousness longing to return home to America are unable to meet the exigencies of combat experience in Vietnam” (10). Cross realizes that his fantasies will only hinder his own survival during the war. He decides to remove the temptations from his possessions by burning Martha 's photos and letters.…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These are tranquilizers, a huge portion of dope, heavier ammunition, and a starlight scope. Tranquilizers and dope definitely mean that Ted Lavender is not actually psychologically stable. In addition, he is terrified with the war. So, he is not able to fully take care of himself and his health. However, he also has difficulties in physical safety of, so he needs a starlight scope and bigger ammunition.…

    • 851 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Emotional Burdens in the Vietnam War and Tim O’Brien Vietnam soldiers during the war carried emotional burdens because of seeing their mates being killed, the constant fear of death and the traumatic events they were involved. The effects persevere in their minds during and after the war causing a lost in personality and PTSD. The author Tim O’Brien dedicated his life writing about the Vietnam War. The author’s personal experiences and the guilt of forming part of a war he opposed, were part of his inspiration for writing about the Vietnam War.…

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays